"The first question we have to consider is this: Is the correspondence which passes between individual citizens a proper subject of taxation?
"I shall not fall back on abstract principles, or remind you that the very essence of society being the communication of ideas, the object of every government, should be to facilitate and not impede this communication.
"Let us look to actual facts.
"The total length of our highways and departmental and country roads extends to a million of kilomètres (625,000 miles). Supposing that each has cost 100,000 francs (£4000), this makes a capital of 100 milliards (£4,000,000,000) expended by the State to facilitate the transport of passengers and goods.
"Now, put the question, if one of your honourable colleagues asked leave of the Chamber to bring in a bill thus conceived:
"'From and after 1st January next, the Government will levy upon all travellers a tax sufficient not only to cover the expense of maintaining the highways, but to bring back to the Exchequer four or five times the amount of that expense....
"Would you not feel such a proposal to be anti-social and monstrous?
"How is it that this consideration of profits, nay, of simple remuneration, never presents itself to our minds when the question regards the circulation of commodities, and yet appears so natural when the question regards the circulation of ideas?
"Perhaps it is the result of habit. If we had a postal system to create, it would most assuredly appear monstrous to establish it on a principle of revenue.
"And yet remark that oppression is more glaring in this case than in the other.